Should religion be taught in high school?
Posted on: May 14, 2007 - 7:49pm
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Should religion be taught in high school?
I'm wondering what you guys think about religion being taught in high school as a manditory course. Not preached but rather taught in a strictly unbiased, educational way. After all, religion plays a huge part in the social structure of not just this country but all over the world, past and present. Knowledge is power. It seems to me that religion thrives on ignorance, so if people had a better understanding of all the religions of the world they would be better able to think for themselves and avoid the brainwashing tactics of society.
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In my opinion, you can't teach religion in an unbiased way because religion is extremely biased. I think it should be left out of school for good simply because... it's not science. Nor is it required in any of the school cirriculum. So it would be kind of a waste and irrelevant to teach religion.
"Why would God send his only son to die an agonizing death to redeem an insignificant bit of carbon?"-Victor J. Stenger.
My highschool did have a mythology course that I took for fun. For the most part we covered the greeks, pagans, etc. Although he said his family was from a Christian background, he seemed like an atheist to me. I never did ask him though, and I wouldn't have been surprised if he was.
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Hey there. At first thought, I had an inclination towards no, but that was the indoctrination of Catholic school religion classes many years ago. After some thought, I would agree that teaching the idea of, history, and evolution of religions in our society. Religion and faith thrive on ignorance and teaching a class on it would, I believe, be very worth our society's while.
Though thinking about those indoctrination classes from my high school years ago- they never had much of an effect on me. Even back then I thought it was a bunch of nonsense.
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"The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the Supreme Being as His father, in the womb of a virgin will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter." -Thomas Jefferson
I'm against mandatory religion courses however I'm for electives as long as they're not being taught to indoctrinate. The problem though is that with so many religions in the world which ones would be taught and which would be left out?
Well, my mythology class only covered "classic" myths. There is a theology/philosophy class at my collage though. I think it would be fun to take because it covers many different religions. I imagine it would be a great place to educate people too.
JESUS SAVES!!! .... and takes only half damage!
I see no reason why religion can not be taught in an unbiased way. For instance, what is the fundamental difference between Christianity and catholicism? What is the significance of communion or the principles of Buddism? Why can those answers not be taught unbiasedly? I'm an athesit but I am not afraid of religion. It seems odd to me that something so intertwined within every culture of this world is not taught in the schools of a 'free' country. It's no less important than History class.
If it were taught by an atheist (and not a strong atheist, but someone who just doesn't believe) it would be fine. As one muslim recently said to me, "I think atheists are important when talking about religion because they are unbiased."
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I think it would be wrong to have a religious test for any employment, so this seems wrong to me.
I would support teaching a religion course, but I would demand a logic course as a prerequisite.
It's only the fairy tales they believe.
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Well I suppose if you teach it in that way, it could be unbiased. But I think that if they are to teach religion in school, it should be in the form of mythology and theology classes, not any specific religion. I myself plan on taking mythology classes in college. I am not afraid of religion either, however I do not wish to learn "How great jesus is". I imagine if I am going to be taught religion, I want to know about all religion, it's roots, where it came from, what makes it a religion, so on and so forth. I don't want to know how great allah is or any of the other religions.
"Why would God send his only son to die an agonizing death to redeem an insignificant bit of carbon?"-Victor J. Stenger.
It's fundamentally unfair to discriminate against people by religion. It defies secularism, and secularism is the basis of people of different beliefs being able to coexist in the same society. And, there is no reason that an atheist would be less biased than anyone else. A good teacher can step back from their own beliefs and teach the curriculum. I had a theist professor for a religion class in college (Atheism, Theism, and Secularism), and he did a marvelous job, and kept his beliefs out of way. By your rules, he wouldn't have been able to teach. It's unfair, and it would have been a loss to me, and everyone else he taught.
It's only the fairy tales they believe.
You have a point, but at the very least, radicals should be kept out of it, as radicals would be incapable of being unbiased.
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It cant work because some parent somewhere will object to it, even if the kid themselves dont. And they would be right . If there was a class that taught the Wicca religion some Baptist would object to it even being on school property.
And it begs the question, if we do let religion in, which one? Which sect? If we let anyone teach any religion that would have to include Mormanism, Voodooism, Shintoism, ect ect ect ect. When it gets to that length the entire day would be spent on that and then where would the english writing skills, math and science be taught?
The only fair thing to do is for all to agree that school time is for learning not politicall correctness or sensitivity training. If parents want their kids to be worldly then that has to come from them. The job of the goverment is not to decide what religion the child will or will not be exposed to.
It is a nice idea to want some sort of utopian class where
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
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People who think there is something they refer to as god don't ask enough questions.
I've been out of highshool for 15 years or so, but we did discuss world religions in public school. Now that I am thinking of examples, we had some of it in elementary school. In 6th grade we studied Islam, Shinto, Buddism(sp), and Christianity (but not Hidduism). Again in 9th grade. 10th grade English we read and studied parts of the Bible...not as a a work of faith, but as a conerstone of Western Literature. None of this was presented in a biased manner and I remember specific instances of our English teacher stopping discussion of a few points because it was not relavant to the Bible as a literary work.
To be completely honest, this factual portrait of the basic tenets of other beliefs is what started me down the road to atheism. It sparked my curiosity and I began a search for God that eventually led me here.
"When you hit your thumb with a hammer it's nice to be able to blaspheme. It takes a special kind of atheist to jump up and down shout, 'Oh, random fluctuations-in-the-space-time-continuum!'"-Terry Pratchett
I agree, but I think the standard should be "If you can keep your personal beliefs out of it, you can teach".
It's only the fairy tales they believe.
Religion has no place in school.
I don't know how many times I had to listen to a long Christian prayer at graduations. What a waste of time and a violation of the separation of church and state. But I'm in Indiana, so speaking up against it would open a can of worms I'm not ready for.
Anyways, if a World Religion class is taught as an elective, I'm all for it. I think it would help some theists get over their delusions when the realize the reason for religion existing.
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i think teaching religion in school would be a good idea.
i mean, not necessarily "preaching religion", but teaching about it. not specifically christianity, either. religion is a huge part of today's society, whether we like it or not, and i think it's best to be educated on it. atheists especially should know quite a bit about religion if we're going to be arguing our case; "knowing the enemy" in a way. i think it would also open up the minds of those who are religious to other religions; christians can realise that there were many other religions established before it and many of them teach/preach a lot of the same doctrine.
No, we shouldn't open those floodgates to allow any version of religion into school. Once you have a class that focuses on religion, whether for or against, then the other side wants their own version, then all other forms of religion will want there own spin on their own class. On the other hand, I would like to see atheists start opening their own community centers where people can go to meet other atheists in the community, get information and the facts and myths of the worlds religions, as well as get assistance that doesn't come with religious strings attached.
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I agree with all your reasons for not having religion taught in high school and have some of my own.
But how do you feel about having a religion section in the high school library? Ideally it would fairly represent all religions and if that were the case, would you consider that as a possible compromise?
I like this idea because the choice is left up to the student to investigate and they have the opition to do so. It could also suggest their sincere curiosity and open-mindedness to new ideas. The other end of this ideal sitution would be that a kid would use this information for attacting other religions, or worse, vandalize the books.
Dispite this negative and slight possibility, I would still like to see a religion section in a high school library if it fairly represented all faiths.
Do you think that is a good idea or a bad one?
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Exactly for the reasons you said, NO NO NO. Not in high school. In college, that's one thing. However, in high school? Oh dear, that'd be too hard to pull off. Especially to pull of in an unbiased way. I have a hard enough time keeping the teachers from preaching crap to my cousins at school. They always bring up Xianity and anti-choice rhetoric. They are all about getting to these kids while they are young and impressionable, even if it means violating laws to do so.
Oh of course in college. In college, it's not really biased because it's not about having faith in the religion, it's about learning about the mythologies and theology in general. And in highschool, learning religion as far as the history of it, in the history books isn't really that bad either because I've read my entire history book through boredom and it doesn't really present it in a biased way. But if you're suggesting teach religion as a seperate class then no. absolutely not.
"Why would God send his only son to die an agonizing death to redeem an insignificant bit of carbon?"-Victor J. Stenger.
I'm an exhange student in Germany at the moment, where religion is taught as a required subject in highschool (or the German variation thereof). What I've found is that people here tend to be nonreligious, and if they are religious, they mostly don't go to any church. They're also much more tolerant of religious diversity here, which is a really nice change from what it's like in Texas. Seeing Muslims chatting away with Christians or other people is a really good feeling. The religion class covers the main religions in the world, aka Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, and Hinduism, but also covers smaller religions, although in less detail. The class is something similar to a comparative religions class in college, and I think it really does some good. They cover the basic tenets of the religions, where the religions come from (geographically speaking), and the differences and similarities between the religions. I think people that are completely ignorant of other beliefs are more likely to be intolerant and closed minded, and I agree with Izzypop that realizing there are other people out there that believe other things began to make me question my own religion, which led to atheism.
Also, Daniel Dennet covers this topic in a speech he gave at the TED conference in 2006. He is for a religion class.
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/94
I highly recommend checking out the TED conference speeches by the way. Many of them are fascinating, funny, or just really cool.
www.ted.com
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In private schools as long as there are no govenment vouchers for students or appropriations from any of George W. Bushs Faith-Based Initiatives or any other public funding or support including services like public buses, HUD, Department of Education, etc... and it isnt in blatant disregard of the Establishment clause of the First Amendment then yeah, its fine with me.